New MySchool fund to make teaching dreams come true

Through Dream2Teach, MySchool will help aspiring learners achieve their dreams of becoming a teacher with a personalised support and scholarships from start to end. The Dream2Teach Scholarship Fund will award scholarships to selected matriculants who have a clear purpose to become teachers but lack the financial means to gain a tertiary qualification.

Few people are aware of the serious shortage of teachers and how this will escalate in future. About 15,000 new teachers qualify every year in South Africa, but we need 22,000 in order to compensate for retiring teachers and a growing number of school-going children. 74% of our current teacher workforce is over 40 years of age, and only 8% of them are between 20 to 29 years. This means there are nowhere near the number of new teachers needed to replace the teachers who will be retiring in the next 10 to 20 years*.

“...A Dream2Teach scholarship will not just provide the financial aid for a student teacher but will take a whole-person approach and focus also on their personal and leadership development. We want to give our beneficiaries not just the opportunity to become ‘a teacher’ but the chance to be a great teacher who changes lives for the better,” said Helene Brand, marketing and CSI manager for MySchool.

The Dream2Teach Fund is managed by the MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet fundraising programme. The number of learners that will benefit from the scholarship will be dependant on the support from South Africans. The more people swipe their MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet card for the Fund, the more funds will be raised and the greater the impact. If you already have a card, you can add Dream2Teach as an additional beneficiary.

For more information or to sign up for your free MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet card, go to www.myschool.co.za

*According to a 2014 Stellenbosch University study by Hendrik van Broekhuiszen